I have a flock of sixteen laying hens and one rooster. They free-range and have a coop converted from a stall in the barn. They are just under a year old, and came here as day-olds. One of them is raising seven chicks, and the chicks also live in the coop with the laying flock and free-range with their broody. They are about three weeks old.
I have sixteen ducks, who have a duck house down by the pond, at some distance from the chooks. They are about eight weeks old.
And I have 103 five-week-old meat birds (mostly JM colored range broilers) and thirteen more layers, same age. I'm raising this group together.
I have 26 acres, but the layers obviously don't spread out over that whole area, and the meaties are kept pretty close to the house and barn so I can keep an eye on them.
The meaties went out onto pasture about two weeks ago. They have open shelters surrounded by electronet. They are learning to stick with their shelters. I've now moved the net twice, with the meaties loose for a good part of the day. They don't go far, and I just sort of encourage them back into their new area before putting up the net again. (Its purpose is to keep things OUT, not so much to keep chicks IN.)
What I've found curious is the conspicuous way that my free-range residents cannot see the 116 young birds in their midst.
I never see them interacting; I expected to see some territoriality or bullying.
I almost never see any of the layers near the meaties. Tough to do -- they are sort of in the middle of things.
The layers don't even steal food from the meaties. And they are -- just ask them -- always on the brink of starving to death because of my stinginess with the feed. Yet they would have us believe they are oblivious to open troughs full of mash a few feet away.
La la la, there is no chicken there, la la la, I see no chicken in front of me ...
What gives?
And what's going to happen in July when the meaties move to freezer camp and I try to integrate the new Delawares and Ameraucanas with the layer flock?
I have sixteen ducks, who have a duck house down by the pond, at some distance from the chooks. They are about eight weeks old.
And I have 103 five-week-old meat birds (mostly JM colored range broilers) and thirteen more layers, same age. I'm raising this group together.
I have 26 acres, but the layers obviously don't spread out over that whole area, and the meaties are kept pretty close to the house and barn so I can keep an eye on them.
The meaties went out onto pasture about two weeks ago. They have open shelters surrounded by electronet. They are learning to stick with their shelters. I've now moved the net twice, with the meaties loose for a good part of the day. They don't go far, and I just sort of encourage them back into their new area before putting up the net again. (Its purpose is to keep things OUT, not so much to keep chicks IN.)
What I've found curious is the conspicuous way that my free-range residents cannot see the 116 young birds in their midst.
I never see them interacting; I expected to see some territoriality or bullying.
I almost never see any of the layers near the meaties. Tough to do -- they are sort of in the middle of things.
The layers don't even steal food from the meaties. And they are -- just ask them -- always on the brink of starving to death because of my stinginess with the feed. Yet they would have us believe they are oblivious to open troughs full of mash a few feet away.
La la la, there is no chicken there, la la la, I see no chicken in front of me ...
What gives?
And what's going to happen in July when the meaties move to freezer camp and I try to integrate the new Delawares and Ameraucanas with the layer flock?
